Cougar Lakes — Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016

Mount Rainier Area > Chinook Pass - Hwy 410

This is my second time doing this hike. Both with the adventures of Coach Cawell. This time we brought his son up there for his first overnight hike experience. Another success. First of all the WTA is off on this hike, it's actually 5.6 miles in to the lake and about 1,725 vertical. You gain about 560 verts after Swamp Lake then head back down 300 vert to Cougar Lakes. This is a popular horse trail to swamp lake after that it get's to more of a hikers paradise. Only the expert horseman go down to Cougar Lake. After Swamp Lake you hit 560ft uphill vertical for about a mile and a half it drops 300 feet steep into Cougar Lakes, this is actually the highlight of the trip. Coach Cawell's son had the same reaction dropping down as we did. Felt like a nice cubby hole with two beautiful lakes surrounded by an ampitheater of Rock formation and cliffs. This area reminds me of something you would see in Northern Arizona/ Southern Utah area. We camped overnight being the only ones out there and fished for some nice brook trout. The swimming in Little Cougar was like a pool with small fish jumping everywhere. I caught a 14" so we kept it and shared it for dinner. That night was a full moon so I slept outside. For the first time we saw two groups of humans come in that morning. First time we've seen people on two overnight hikes there. Some real brainiacs left batteries and an empty can of bug spray in the fire pit that we hauled out. COME ON.....REALLY!